Doctor: Your overweight really concerns me. You really must do something against it.
Patient: I'd really love to doctor. But since the divorce last year I hit a big depression with losts of drinking and other stuff you know.
Doctor: Oh, then the (financial) situation is not as bad as I thought.

I hate sin taxes. First reason why is the principle. Second reason is that they never work. People will just find other ways to get around it if they want to. Kind of like the War on Drugs.

Your example of an American football player is what I was getting at. An American football player is probably one of the highest risk customers to have. I love watching MMA and people often ask how I can watch something so violent. I always tell them that it is safer than playing football so just shut the fuck up. If you get KO'd or TKO'd in MMA, you are required to take at least two months off, probably three. In football, they might stay in the game after a concussion. If they are sidelined, it usually isn't more than two weeks. Pro football players and pro wrestlers are often cripples in their 60's because of joint problems as well.

I don't have a problem with discrimination. It has too much stigma of being associated with racism though. In the dictionary, discrimination means to use good judgment. I do believe that everyone should have the opportunity to buy health insurance, but if a high-risk customer has to pay a higher premium I have no problem with that.

There is another difference in healthcare systems: the question of financing.

If it is tax financed the revenues are probably easier to calculate and to advance in the future. A private health insurance will have to very big and long term oriented and still is dependent on the development of the financial markets a lot.

Just one example. Private insurances here suffered a lot from the low yield following the 2007 financial crisis. Also private pensions suffer. There might be times when the situation improves again but nobody knows when.

I disagree to a level. First of all, the principle is sound to me: if you want to buy unhealthy stuff, you'll pay extra taxes that (hopefully) are channeled also to public health care. So in a sense, you are already paying for the costs that you are causing to the system.

But as you said, people may try to find ways around this. Specifically in Finland and EU zone, if you jack up the price of alcohol, people will try to bring more and more of it from e.g. Estonia. Some might also try to make their own alcohol, if they are so inclined. So, to really work, we should have tighter borders, or then the price should be around the same in all EU zone.

Anyway, I personally see myself rejecting buying alcohol and sweets nowadays partly because it saves me quite a bit of money too. Whenever I add a few beers and sweets/ice cream/whatever to my grocery list, the bill seems to shoot up considerably, and I hate that. Food is already quite expensive here as it is, and I try to find ways to make if more affordable, and buy things that are cheaper.

I've seen the same firsthand. When I was looking for a sports coverage in insurance, the fact that I do some MA training (not competitive, but it includes MMA-kind of practises too), I had to get extended sports coverage.

At the same time, I found that for American football, they don't even offer any insurance for individuals, but you'll have to get it through your team, and it costs a lot. Even here the insurance companies rate American football the most dangerous sport, and why not. People running towards each others head on, how sick is that?

(Yes, some people really play American football here, I even know one person at my work who is coaching it. Not a big sport here though.)

Then again, apparently floorball ("salibandy" in Finnish, or even "sähly") causes overall the most injuries here. Knee and ankle injuries etc., but it seems quite a lot of recreational floorball players not using eye protection seem to get eye injuries too.